Beyond the Binary
by Laura Schiller
Summary: A fix-it for "Project Daedalus". Spock and Michael get into another argument, but are sidetracked by a welcome interruption. Spoilers.


Beyond the Binary

By Laura Schiller

Based on: _Star Trek: Discovery_

Copyright: CBS

/

For a moment, as Commander Airiam was sucked out the airlock, everyone watching her from the station and the ship stood frozen in horror. Her pleas to be killed before CONTROL could force her to do any more damage, Pike's orders and Michael's desperate refusals were still echoing in everyone's ears. Nhan reached for her breathing device with shaking hands. Michael pressed her hand to the airlock door, her eyes swimming with tears.

But it was only for a moment. They were still Starfleet officers, after all.

"Get a lock on her!" Michael shouted through the comm system on her spacesuit.

If Ash Tyler, who was all flesh and blood, could survive several seconds in space before being beamed to _Discovery_'s sickbay, surely the cybernetically augmented Airiam could do the same.

"_Beam her to the brig,"_ she heard Pike say, followed by a breathless _"Yes, sir," _from Owosekun.

The brig? That made sense. There were no computer panels inside and the force field was strong enough; she could stay there until Stamets and Tilly could figure out a way to deprogram her.

Airiam's tall silvery figure, still just visible through the airlock glass, lit up with golden light from the transporter beam and vanished.

"_Transport complete," _said Owosekun. _"Vital signs are stable."_

A woman's sob of relief echoed around the steel bulkheads of Section 31's deserted headquarters. At first, Michael thought the noise must have come from Tilly or Detmer, or even Nhan, who was struggling to her feet on the other end of the room. It wasn't until she felt the hot tears streaming down her face that she realized it was her own.

/

Spock might have told Michael during their last fight that he had learned to enjoy expressing his emotions, but he was not enjoying the ones he felt now. Watching via the spacesuit cameras as his sister and her colleague tried to murder each other was a sight he could never unsee.

Michael was always so strong, so capable. She always had the last word. Seeing her struggle in Airiam's metallic hands like a rag doll, while he was helpless to intervene, was profoundly disturbing.

There were a dozen things he wanted to do or say to her, most of them illogical. Worst of all, the little brother in him wanted to run forward, throw his arms around his big sister, and tell her never to scare him like that again.

"What did you think you were doing?" he demanded instead.

She had come to his quarters carrying the 3-D chessboard, of all things. The sight of that board irritated him past all logic; it was yet more evidence that she couldn't leave well enough alone.

For a small human woman whose eyes, hair and complexion were all different from theirs, Michael could look uncannily like Sarek when she chose. She placed the chessboard and the box of pieces on the table, pivoted neatly to face him, locked her arms behind her back and raised a single eyebrow.

"Do you mean preventing a hostile A.I. from taking over Starfleet or saving Commander Airiam's life? I fail to see which of these actions would make you glare at me like that."

Was he glaring? Right now he didn't even care. "Captain Pike and I were both telling you to open that airlock."

"You don't get to give me orders, Lieutenant_._"

"No, Commander_, _but the captain does. If Airiam had broken through and delivered the data to CONTROL, your hesitation would have doomed us all. Have you learned nothing from the Klingon War? How many more times must you disobey orders and risk untold consequences for the sake of your ego?"

Michael stepped back, bracing her hand against the back of a chair, at his mention of the Klingon War. It was a low blow and he knew it, but part of him took a strange satisfaction in knocking the borrowed Vulcan manners out of her. She might have been Sarek's favorite student, but the Path of Surak would never be engrained in her body, mind and soul the way it was in him. (Not that he was exactly living up to it at the moment, of course.)

"If I'd obeyed orders, Airiam would be dead or mind-controlled right now," she snapped, her eyes glittering with rage. "It's not my ego that concerns me, it's other people's lives."

"Your friends' lives, yes, at the expense of everyone else. You would sacrifice the needs of the many for the needs of the few."

Michael banged her hand on the table, rattling the chessboard, which was more fragile than it looked after being stuffed in and out of suitcases halfway around the galaxy. He had forgotten to thank her for salvaging it from the _Enterprise_, but thanking her for anything was the last thing he wanted to do.

"They're not always mutually exclusive, Spock! Why does everything have to be so binary with you? Either/or. Vulcan or human. Logic or emotion. Why can't you have both?"

"And why must you always insist that your way is the only correct one? _Why can't you listen to me when I am trying to help you?_"

He didn't even realize he had said that until it was already out of his mouth. Michael's eyes widened. They stared at each other in breathless silence for a moment, struggling to absorb what the other had just said.

Memory dragged Spock back to the entryway of their childhood home in Shi'kahr, where he had caught her running away and told her essentially the same thing. Her cruelty that night ("_I don't want a freak like you for a brother!"_) had been haunting him ever since. Was she about to repeat it? Did she still believe that the only way to protect someone was to push them away?

Falling back into that memory, however, made him think of how the Talosians had forced them into a mind-meld only a few days ago. He had seen it through her eyes then, as she had seen it through his. He now knew the precise weight of the remorse she had carried all these years. He wouldn't wish that on his worst enemy, let alone his sister.

His sister who had risked her life and sanity to save him from Section 31. His sister who had been pushing him to figure out the mystery of the Red Angel because she knew as well as he did how important it was. His sister who wanted to help.

_Why can't you listen … ?_

She might as well have asked him the same thing.

Sarek had noble ideals, but was ruthless and uncompromising in carrying them out. So, in her own way, was Amanda, and they had raised their children to be the same. That was why they fought so much, and still didn't give up on each other. They were just too much alike.

He did not know what he would have said next if the door signal hadn't chimed. He found himself both angry and relieved at the interruption.

"Enter," he said.

It was Commander Airiam, looking as shy and deferential as her cybernetic features allowed.

He was not, emphatically _not, _afraid of her. But he did wish she would save her important discussion with Michael for someplace other than his quarters.

"How are you, Airiam?" Michael asked, quite gently for someone who had been trying to smash her colleague's face with the butt of a phaser rifle earlier.

"Fine, thank you, Michael. Dr. Pollard and Lieutenant Stamets both ran full diagnostics on me," said Airiam. "To make sure there was no malware left in my system. They said I was functioning normally." Her vocal processor had a strange ring to it, however, like a string on a Vulcan lyre just slightly out of tune. Spock supposed that, in her place, he wouldn't feel normal either.

"If there's anything you need, just tell us." Michael clasped her hands in front of her, as if ready to reach out and comfort Airiam at the slightest cue.

"Actually … " Airiam whirred, which sounded like the cyborg version of clearing one's throat. "I came here to thank you. Both of you," she added, turning her metallic eyes on Spock.

"Both of us?" Spock asked, taken aback. "But - "

" – I could have killed you," he and Michael said, with less then a second's difference.

"If Michael had not saved you - " Spock tried to explain, at the same time Michael said, "I totally froze back there, Spock was just trying - "

Then they caught each other's eye and looked away. In any other circumstance, it might have been amusing, but now it was simply awkward. It wasn't the first time Spock had defended his sister – the amount of unpleasant comments about her mutiny he'd shut down was considerable – but he hadn't done it to her face in twenty years. Strange, how natural it still felt.

Airiam bowed her sleek head in what was most likely gratitude, although he caught something that might have been a smile. "You both did everything you could to stop me and fulfill our mission," she said. "There's no need to argue about the differences in your method. Although if I may say so, I'm rather glad Michael's method succeeded."

"Me too," said Michael, with a warm smile for her friend and a brief, uncertain one for Spock.

"As am I," said Spock, raising his right hand in his most elegant _ta'al. _"You showed exemplary courage and dedication to duty today, Commander Airiam. It is an honor to serve with you."

He would not apologize. To do so would be illogical, since he had been acting in the best interest of everyone concerned. Still, this was one of the rare occasions in his life when failure did prove liberating.

"The honor is mine, Lieutenant." Airiam mirrored the greeting with superhuman precision, but the happiness in her voice was very human indeed.

_Why does everything have to be so binary with you? _Michael had asked him. Perhaps she had a point. For most of his life, he had felt as if his two cultures were tearing him apart between them, but she treated her Vulcan training as an asset, something she could add to her human personality without one overwhelming the other. As for Airiam, she was the most graceful blend of human and machine he had ever met. If they could see beyond the binary, why couldn't he?

"I'm going to archive this, you know," said Airiam, tapping the side of her head as she turned to leave. "For the rest of my life."

_So will I,_ thought Spock as they wished each other goodnight.


End file.
